Human evolution at the crossroad: between geoeconomic and cosmopolitan approach to space resources

Decades, maybe centuries, long dispute between academic camps of realists and cosmopolitans is not coming to an end with space exploration in the name of humankind, rather the opposite. Unregulated environment has ever been a source of temptation for those individuals who seek fortune and power. At the same time, the others who can imagine dare consequences of unregulated environment to the broader society have been bringing ideas, norms and regimes to avoid conflicts. The current situation at the brink of the age, in which space resource exploitation is becoming feasible, is way different because the investors seek security for their investment, states seek security for their jewels of states’ assets sent by national space agencies and world has been experiencing purely cosmopolitan regime stipulated in Outer Space Treaty for half century. Conquering “territory” in space has lost its classical geopolitical sense due to the orbital mechanics principles, space mining requires massive investments that must be secured for the investors and Outer Space Treaty is the only normative basis on which the commercial and political actors can build stability, predictability and prosperity. I argue that classical geopolitical thinking is not bringing a predictable political system for space activities governance and is rather submersed into its own dire imaginations of dark future of humanity whereas the cosmopolitans continue to use ethical arguments for the need of human prosperity without a practical sense for the first needed regime of operations. In contrast to this classical epistemological dispute between these contradictory ways of thinking, I argue that the very pragmatic sense of global corporate business practices will bring predictable governance to space and states will play a little role in its establishment. The result of geopolitical and cosmopolitan thinking will be significantly influenced by the need of investment protection for newly emerging space corporations that will create networked, predictable, unterritorial, norm-oriented and stable system of space governance.